Geopolitik als Literatur – ein germanistischer Beitrag zur Genealogie der deutschen Politischen Geographie und Geopolitik

Abstract

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> This contribution of a literary scholar to the history of geopolitics argues for the consideration of literary sources as constituents of the „classical“ geopolitical discourse (Ratzel, Kjellén, Haushofer). It exemplifies this claim by revealing the geopolitical components through which Gustav Freytag's novel <i>Soll und Haben</i> (<i>Debit and Credit</i>, Freytag, 1855, 1858) creates spaces, civilizations, and stories. Approaching these issues from the perspective of literary history and the history of knowledge, this paper turns to Freytag's novel to examine whether the literature of the period of the so-called „bourgeois“ or „poetic“ realism belongs to the genealogy of German political geography and geopolitics and how to study its impact on their increasingly manifest political program after the beginning of the First World War. Especially the establishment of the topos of the „Volk ohne Raum“ (people without space) in the east of the German Reich and the reorientation of geopolitics „gen Osten“ (toward the east) in the early twentieth century find a highly compatible antecedent in <i>Soll und Haben</i>.</p>